Port of Houston readies for big container era

Published 8:54 am, Monday, September 17, 2012

Photo: KRISTI NIX

Image 1of/1

Caption

Close

Image 1 of 1

Col. Len Waterworth

Col. Len Waterworth

Photo: KRISTI NIX

Port of Houston readies for big container era

1 / 1

Back to Gallery

Col. Len Waterworth, Executive Director of the Port of Houston Authority, updated Pasadena Chamber of Commerce members on the port’s plans for the future during Thursday’s luncheon at First United Methodist Church.

“I sort of believe unless you understand the history just a little bit, know how you got to where you are right now you really can’t anticipate where you’re going in the future,” Waterworth said. “Those that came before us saw and envisioned a course that was bringing international commerce to this region. And because they were able to bring that kind of commerce to us, we were able to bring tier one universities, we were bringing world class health care facilities and it’s all based on commerce.

“As the port grew the community grew. For nearly 100 years the Port of Houston Authority has owned and operated a public cargo handling facility for the nation’s largest port for foreign water borne tonnage. Your port is an economic engine that supports the creation of close to a million jobs along that 52 miles of channel. $178 billion of commerce happens along that 52 miles of channel. Nationwide we’re talking about 2.1 million jobs that directly or indirectly are off this resource.”

Waterworth said the ability to sustain that economic engine are tied to the Houston-Galveston Ship Channel. And with larger ships from Asia expected to take advantage of an expanded Panama Canal in the near future, the port is taking steps to meet that demand.

“To be ready for that we are currently taking on some significant projects, we’re taking those projects on without any federal assistance because the federal government takes a while,” Waterworth said. “We’re investing $115 million in our facilities. We have two container facilities right now and those facilities sit on a 40 foot channel. So we will be investing dollars to take them to 45 feet to match the federal channel (requirements). That’s truly going to be a game changer. the ships are going to be able to come in full. We service 4,500 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units, the standard for measuring a ship’s cargo capacity) ships, in the future we’ll start to handle 8,200 (and) 8,400. We’ll see less ships probably but more containers and that’s good for the economy of the region. We’re going to accomplish that over the next couple of years.”

When finished the port facilities will meet the federal standards of 45 feet depth and 530 feet width requirements.

“We need to keep that so that ships can come in fully laden,” Waterworth said.

Waterworth said the port plans to invest millions more over the next 15 years.

“The whole idea is that we have an economic engine that has been proven successful for the last 98 years and one of those things I think about is how do we set the conditions today that that engine, our community, the port, extend that prosperity for the next 98 years,” he said. “So we have a plan and we’re trying to move aggressively to make that happen.”

Waterworth said he remains an optimist about the future of the region and the port.

Now Playing:

“I believe that the next 100 years could be even more prosperous than last 100,” he said. “I personally believe we’ll be a net energy exporting country by 2020. And I think the nexus of that comes through our region.”